


A Change in Perspective

by Metal_Chocobo



Category: DC Super Hero Girls (Web Series 2015)
Genre: Bodyswap, Gen, Yuletide 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:21:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21724711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metal_Chocobo/pseuds/Metal_Chocobo
Summary: Barbara's latest invention malfunctions causing her to swap bodies with Kara.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	A Change in Perspective

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CartoonAddict564](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CartoonAddict564/gifts).



“Alright Batgirl, you’re up now,” Crazy Quilt said. “What accessory did you create?”

“Telepathy Tiaras,” Barbara announced, holding up a pair of grey circlets.

“What, not Bat Brain Protectors?” Harley asked. This garnered her a few laughs from the class. “I thought you were absolutely batty about product naming.”

“Perhaps I’ll use that for the final product. These are just prototypes.”

“How do they work?” Crazy Quilt asked.

“Two people wear them with direct skin contact at the temple and they’re able to send thoughts to one another. Perfect for communication in stealth scenarios where silence is an absolute necessity. It also offers moderate protection against psychic intrusion.”

“Interesting. Let’s see it in action,” Crazy Quilt said.

“Of course.” Barbara set one tiara on a table and carefully placed the other on her head. After a moment of adjustment to ensure a solid metal connection with her temples she pulled her hood back up. As she was doing this Tatsu rose from her seat and weaved her way to the front of the class. “Katana has graciously agreed to help demonstrate how my Telepathy Tiaras work.”

“Wait, that’s not fair!” Cheetah protested. “This is mind-to-mind without any outwardly visible effect, right? If you already have someone picked out to test them, how do we know they really worked and you didn’t have some prearranged phrases set up?”

“Okay, first off, I resent the implication that I’d lie about an invention,” Barbara growled. “Secondly—”

“Secondly, I’ll happily take Katana’s place to prove just how great Batgirl’s invention is,” Kara said, cutting Batgirl off. She crossed her arms and looked around the room. “If there aren’t any objections.”

“I think that’s perfectly reasonable,” Crazy Quilt said. “Katana, I know this was also your project, but not helping demonstrate the accessory won’t harm your grade.”

“Cool. Thanks,” Tatsu said and returned to her seat.

“Are you sure, Supergirl?” Barbara asked.

“Of course,” Kara grinned. She jammed the tiara onto her head, which was a slightly snug fit. “I trust you with my life. And my favorite sweater.”

Now was probably not the time to mention she didn’t know where said sweater was. Nor should she be thinking about that right now unless she accidentally wanted to send that message to Kara. So after a brief moment to clear her mind, Batgirl shut her eyes, tapped the side of her tiara to activate it, and tried sending the message originally meant for Tatsu to Kara.

By all rights she ought to have heard Kara either quack like a duck or else ask why she should quack right now. Instead there was a popping noise and a lot of smoke that sent the class coughing. Fans began whirring as the room’s auto ventilation kicked in. When the smoke cleared Barbara realized she wasn’t in the same location in the room despite not moving. More troubling was the fact she could now see herself coughing.

“Oh wow, is this thing also able to create a body double?” the other Batgirl asked.

“What body double?” Crazy Quilt asked. “I don’t see any body double. More importantly, shouldn’t you know the effects of your own creation, Batgirl?”

Barbara looked down. She could see a familiar S crest emblazoned on the front of her now blue shirt and a red skirt below it. Lifting up now bare hands she recognized them as familiar, but definitely not hers.

“Supergirl, I’m pretty sure we swapped bodies,” Barbara said. “This is definitely not one of the side effects we got during testing.”

Cheetah burst out laughing.

In the end Crazy Quilt gave them a C on the project. His reasoning being that while the accessory did something, it wasn’t the originally proposed effect, nor were they able to reverse the effect in class. While Barbara was definitely going to freak out about that later—she had never gotten such a low grade in her life—she had bigger fish to fry at the moment. She was also a superhero who could compartmentalize. As soon as class ended Barbara took Kara back to her room so that she could open up the Telepathy Tiaras and figure out what had gone wrong. What she found was unsettling.

“Everything is completely melted!” Barbara shouted. She hit her workbench, accidentally leaving a perfect imprint of the bottom of her fist in the stainless steel. She gestured at the liquid metal inside the portion of the tiara where the electronic circuitry was supposed to sit. “I was careful to size the wires for proper ampacity and nothing like this happened in any of our tests!”

“Easy there, Babs,” Kara said, squeezing her shoulder. Hearing her say that in Barbara’s voice made it far less comforting than it normally would have been. “We’ll figure out what went wrong and fix it.”

“But Tatsu and I did twenty-three tests, I repeat twenty-three tests, and nothing like this happened during any of them,” Barbara said. “I don’t understand what went wrong.”

“Do you still have the data from the tests along with the original blueprints?” Kara asked.

“Of course! You don’t honestly think I’d throw that out just because I turned the project in today. I was hoping to continue refining it in some of my spare time.”

“Of which you have an ample amount,” Kara grinned. Barbara found herself smiling back. It was a surreal experience seeing her own face move in real life, but at the same time she could see Kara shining through the micro expressions on her face. “My point is that if you still have all of your notes you can rebuild the Telepathy Tiaras and reverse what they did to us. No biggie. I’ll help however I can.”

“You’re right! This is totally fixable!” Barbara pulled Kara into a tight hug that lasted until she heard something snap. “Are you okay?”

“I’m a little crushed, but all that broke was your body armor,” Kara wheezed.

“I’m sorry. I guess I don’t know my own strength,” Barbara said.

“Correction, you don’t know my strength. Be careful, Babs, you don’t want to accidentally injure anyone and that’s normally really easy for me to do.”

“Right back at ya. You need to remember that my body isn’t impervious and your normal heroics won’t work.”

“So no jumping off any buildings. Got it.”

“At least not until you learn to work the Batwings,” Barbara laughed. She clamped Kara on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go talk to Principal Waller. I’m sure she’ll understand the situation.”

Principal Waller did not consider a body swap to be extenuating circumstances—any halfway competent mad scientist could cause the same problem—and so the girls continued with their classes. Gym was perhaps the worst class for both of them. Barbara’s unexpected strength had her crushing equipment when she only meant to grasp it and she accidentally kicked Diana through a wall during a spar. On the other hand, Kara found herself a slave to physics as her actual mass did matter on whether or not she’d be sent flying due to another’s volition. 

By the end of the week Barbara had rebuilt her invention. It was a good thing it hadn’t taken her any longer because she wasn’t certain her body could withstand Kara’s treatment of it much longer (no broken bones yet, but a heck of a lot of bruising) nor could the school her inexperienced handling of Kryptonian powers. When Harley tried to scare her coming out of the shower this morning Barbara had accidentally melted a hole through a wall with heat vision and started a small electrical fire. No one was injured, but there was now an unsightly plywood board covering half the wall in the girls’ bathroom.

“Are you ready to get your body back?” Barbara asked.

“Gosh yes,” Kara said, rubbing the back of her neck. “I don’t understand how you can handle being a superhero when it hurts your body this much. I ache everywhere!”

“Batman’s broken almost every bone in his body,” Barbara said. She tapped her right ear. “I think he’s managed to avoid breaking a couple of the bones in this ear, but most everything else has snapped at one point or another.”

“How do you do it, Babs? What makes you get back up again and again to fight crime when you don’t have any super powers to make the job easier?”

“I do it the same way you do,” Barbara said, shrugging. “Determination, training, more than a little stubbornness, and a drive to help people. Yeah, it might take me a little longer to get up again than it does you, but I do eventually get up and then I take them down. Though I prefer to best the bad guys before they even realize I’m there. That saves a lot of wear and tear on my joints.”

“I’ll try to remember that,” Kara grinned.

They both put on the tiaras. Barbara shut her eyes, tapped the side of the circlet, and thought really hard about transferring back into her own body. Hopefully that would trigger whatever had caused the swap in the first place. She couldn’t wait to do a proper damage assessment of herself and treat whatever accidents Kara had caused properly.

“Hey, I’ve done the best I could in your skin, you don’t have to complain about the situation in detail!” 

Barbara opened her eyes again. She was still where she had been a moment ago, only she could now see Kara’s hurt expression on her face. “Wait, you heard that?”

“Of course! You were shouting at me… wait,” Kara frowned. “No you weren’t. Is that… is that how the Telepathy Tiaras are supposed to work?”

“Yeah. Preliminary analysis shows that the strength of the emotion behind the message does mess with the volume level when the recipient hears it. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout at you.”

“It’s okay.”

Except it wasn’t okay. Barbara had rebuilt the telepathy tiara according to her specs and they were functioning normally instead of causing accidental body swaps. According to what she knew they should be back in their respective bodies. Unless perhaps she needed to send the exact same thought as last time?

“Babs, why do you want me to quack like a duck?” Kara asked a moment later.

Barbara huffed. “Never mind. I was hoping that maybe the exact phrase again would trigger the swap, but instead they’re functioning as designed. I never thought I’d be annoyed to have one of my inventions working perfectly. Would trying the same sequence in the classroom fix things?”

That’s when the Save the Day Alarm went off. Barbara groaned, but she took her tiara off and set it on her workbench while Kara did the same. They raced to Superhero High’s lobby and Barbara was surprised that she beat everyone else to the lobby. Kara’s super speed must have kicked in.

“What’s the emergency?” Barbara asked.

“Supergirl, I mean Batgirl, Killer Croc is on a rampage at the Metropolis Golf Course,” Principal Waller said. “Do you think you can handle a mission in Supergirl’s body?”

“Of course,” Barbara said. She’d more or less gotten the hang of Kara’s body over the last week and if she wasn’t ready, she could be benched for an undetermined length of time even after she was restored to her proper body.

“We’re both ready for action, ma’am,” Kara said, resting a hand on Barbara’s shoulder. Glancing around she saw that Pamela and Karen had also arrived.

“Understood,” Principal Waller said. “I need you four to go stop Croc ASAP. Bumblebee you take point.”

“Got it,” Karen said, fluttering her wings. She pointed at the door. “Let’s move out!”

Once they arrived was easy to spot Killer Croc causing destruction, as he was busy ripping hunks of sod off the ninth hole and tossing them into a nearby pond. At least there wasn’t much around that he could destroy beyond the plant life, though that wouldn’t score him any points with Pamela. To Barbara’s surprise there were two golfers cowering behind an overturned golf cart just off the edge of the green. She would have thought they’d run away the moment Killer Croc’s attention was off them, but here they still stood.

“Supergirl, get the civilians out of here,” Karen ordered. Barbara hesitantly tapped her chest, unsure if she really meant her or Kara. Karen rolled her eyes. “Yes, I mean you.”

“Got it,” Barbara said. Directing her like that made sense, better to not let anyone outside of Superhero High know about the body swap.

“Good. Ivy, do your thing. Batgirl, you’re with me,” Karen said and then made a beeline toward the super villain. 

Barbara gently landed next to the golfers. She was pleased her landing was gentle enough that her boots didn’t sink into the mud, though her arrival did cause one of the men to shriek in terror.

“Calm down, I’m here to rescue you,” Barbara said. She scooped a man up with each arm and took off, eager to get them out of harm’s way as soon as possible. Getting back into her own body was her top priority, but Barbara had to admit that being able to fly without any mechanical aids was pretty awesome. She’d miss that the most.

Seconds later they arrived at the golf clubhouse. Barbara set the pair down on the patio. They seemed shaken, but otherwise unharmed. She knew she had to get back to the action, however she needed to ask one question before returning.

“What set Killer Croc off?”

“Lenny hit a ball into the water hazard and a moment later that thing came rising out of it,” one of the men said. “I’ve run into plenty of gators on courses before, but nothing like that!”

“Stay off the course until after the police give you the all clear,” Barbara ordered. Then she took flight. Killer Croc had probably been napping in that pond and been awoken by a golf ball hitting him. While that would have made her cranky as well, there was no need to destroy the course over it.

When she rejoined the others Karen was harrying Killer Croc with her electric sting as she changed size to avoid his claws. Creeping vines kept trying to crawl up Killer Croc’s legs that he shredded them before they could take hold. Barbara couldn’t spot Kara anywhere, but she hoped that was simply the Batouflage in action. She worried a little about how well her friend could handle her utility belt. Sure, she had taken an hour to explain all the major components and Kara had fought alongside her for years, but that still didn’t mean Kara was proficient in all her gadgetry.

When Killer Croc registered Barbara’s presence he started backing away from her. Clearly he remembered his run in with Kara last month where she walloped him hard enough to send him flying the length of a city block. She understood him not wanting to repeat the experience. So Barbara landed and simply walked toward him. She hoped Pamela would get a nice net ready to wrap him up. Instead, as soon as he retreated under an oak tree Kara launched herself out of the branches onto his head. This knocked Killer Croc off his feet and the moment his snout touched the ground thick vines wrapped tightly around him. He struggled, but the plants held.

“That was rather anti-climatic,” Barbara said.

“For you maybe,” Kara laughed. She looked down at her hands. “I climbed a tree. I can’t remember the last time I climbed a tree with my hands. I jumped out of a tree onto a villain. I ambush attacked!”

“And you did a great job of it,” Barbara said, pulling Kara into a half hug. “I’m proud of you.”

“We can celebrate properly when we get back to school,” Karen said. “Hey Ivy, you ready to go?”

“No,” Pamela said, shaking her head. “I’m going to help these plants. They were already in distress from all the chemicals the golf course put on them only to then be ripped apart by Killer Croc. They just need a little love and affection before I can leave.”

Barbara had a feeling the course was about to get a few new plant hazards. She wasn’t going to do anything about it. It would add a little excitement to the game, which golf sorely lacked. A glance at Kara told her she was thinking the same thing.

When they returned to school there was a brief debriefing before they were cut loose for the evening. Karen really did offer to throw them a small party for supering in the wrong body, but neither Barbara nor Kara was up for it. Mainly because they were still in this predicament and Barbara didn’t know how to fix it. They needed help, but Barbara wasn’t sure who to turn to in this situation.

“Hey Pumpkin, can I come in?” Commissioner Gordon asked as he tapped on Barbara’s door. Barbara and Kara exchanged a glance. She couldn’t remember if she had told her father about the body swap.

“Come in!” Barbara called.

The bookcase door to her room slid open and Commissioner Gordon entered. He had a slight frown on his face and while his attention was primarily on Kara, who was sitting on Barbara’s bed, he kept glancing at Barbara seated at her workbench. He definitely didn’t know.

“I didn’t realize you had company,” he said, “or that you were having them invite people into your room.”

“Dad, I’m Barbara. She’s Kara,” Barbara said, tapping her chest. “We had an accident with one of my inventions earlier this week. I thought Principal Waller sent you an email about it.”

“Oh.” That seemed to have winded him. Barbara got up quickly and slid him her chair, which he gratefully accepted. “I’m sure she must have, but you know how likely I am to read my email. I must have missed it. And apparently you both are still in the wrong bodies?”

“That’s the weird thing!” Kara exclaimed. “Babs definitely rebuilt the Telepathy Tiaras according to her exhaustive notes—”

“Hey!” Barbara interjected.

“Oh stop it. You know they’re exhaustive and I think it’s adorable that you take that many in the first place. It’s part of why you’re such a great scientist,” Kara said. “And considering her attention to detail I find it strange that rebuilding the devices didn’t recreate the problem.”

“It didn’t?” Commissioner Gordon said.

“No dad, instead they worked the exact way they had during every one of my tests up until my presentation in Intro to Super Suits,” Barbara explained. She shook her head. “I just don’t get it. Why did they work differently that time and only that time?”

“Why did you have to rebuild instead of reusing the original devices?”

“The circuitry was completely melted after the body swap. I just can’t figure out why. I feel like a bad scientist.”

“Have you considered that the problem might not be you or your crowns, Pumpkin?” Commissioner Gordon asked, leveling Barbara a solemn stare. “If you’ve checked and rechecked everything you’ve done without result, then perhaps the problem arose elsewhere.”

“Are you suggesting sabotage?”

“Can you account for all access to your invention between the time of your last test and your presentation?”

“No, no I can’t,” Barbara said. Her invention had sat in the classroom unattended for several hours along with the rest of the class’s in part due to a false Save the Day Alarm that morning. She felt anticipation and excitement churning in her chest. This was a lead she could actually follow. Surging forward she pulled her father into a tight hug. “Thank you, Daddy!”

A moment later she felt a pair of arms around her as Kara had decided to hug them both as well. “Thanks, Commish.”

“Come on, Kara, let’s go find that tape!” Barbara said when she pulled out of the hug. As they left the room Barbara heard Commissioner Gordon say to himself that it felt like he had two daughters now.

As the former IT analyst for Superhero High it was easy for Barbara to get into the security office. She used to archive the school’s security footage, so locating it was a matter of muscle memory for her. Shifting through until she found the right camera with the proper timestamp took a little while, but Barbara accomplished it before Kara could get restless.

“Okay… here I am setting the Telepathy Tiaras down at my work station,” Barbara said. Kara moved to stand directly behind her so that she could see the screen as well. “We’ll speed up the footage to five times normal reference and see who we catch. This might take a while, Kara, so you can chill out a little.”

Unfortunately, this was the boring part of her job. Barbara had pulled more than a few all nighters in her time reviewing surveillance footage because sometimes that was the only way to figure out whodunit. It required patience, dedication, and the ability to stay awake while staring at seemingly unmoving images for hours on end. This particular review was about as easy as it could get, since they had only one camera to worry about and knew the crime occurred within a set three-hour window. A halfway decent fast forward speed was the cherry on top of this particular assignment. Barbara estimated they’d be out of the office within the hour.

That wasn’t good enough for Kara though. She was bored within ten minutes and ready to start crawling the walls in twenty. If she wasn’t her best friend and currently residing in her body Barbara would seriously consider giving her a tranquilizer to get her to calm down. The nervous energy was affecting her focus and she didn’t want to miss the moment their saboteur appeared on screen, especially if they were using super speed, which would already be hard to detect at the rapid viewing.

“Have you found anything yet?” Kara asked.

“No. If I had I would have let you know,” Barbara gritted out. Losing her calm wouldn’t help the situation in the slightest and all it would accomplish would be hurting her best friend’s feelings. “We’ve only been through two thirds of the footage so far and it may not happen until right before I get back to my project.”

“I hope not,” Kara sighed. “I want to go punch something.”

“You and me both. Preferably whoever did this to us.”

“Hey, what’s that?” Kara asked, immediately perking up the moment the static looking screen finally changed.

Barbara leaned in to get a better look. At a comically increased pace Cheetah strutted onscreen and made her way over to the Telepathy Tiaras. Once she reached them she picked one up, used her claws to twist open the access panel, and began rooting around inside the device. Barbara hit pause, rewound the ten seconds this had taken, and then replayed it at normal speed. It was undeniable proof that there was a real saboteur and they got her on tape. She copied the footage onto a USB drive as Kara bounced in glee beside her.

“Come on,” Barbara said, pushing her chair away from the security desk. “Let’s go skin a cat.”

Since it was almost curfew they found Cheetah in her room. She had a mud mask on her face and was filing her nails. Clearly she was getting ready for bed. Her tail twitched as they entered the room, but otherwise she didn’t respond. Since neither she nor Kara was particularly close to Cheetah, Barbara figured she must have been expecting this visit to happen sooner or later. Eventually Cheetah paused her filing and held her nails up for examination. 

“What do you two losers want?” Cheetah asked.

“We reviewed the security footage and found that you intentionally messed with my Telepathy Tiaras,” Barbara said. “You caused the body swap.”

“Oh, are you still struggling to switch back?” Cheetah asked. “I would have thought someone of your supposed intellect would have fixed that by now. I guess you’re not really that smart? Or are you limited being stuck in Supergirl’s grey matter?”

“Babs is brilliant no matter what body she’s in!” Kara snarled. She got in Cheetah’s face. “Now you tell us exactly what you did to those tiaras!”

“Back off red,” Cheetah snapped. She pushed Kara hard enough that she fell out. Kara stared back up with her jaw hanging open. Cheetah laughed. “Oh my god, your face! You’re so used to being able to push people around that when you can’t you don’t know what to do. Hate to break it to you, Supergirl, but at the moment I’m way stronger than you.”

“And on that note, you should remember that I’m stronger than you right now,” Barbara said. “I also have the rest of Kara’s powers and I’m not half as nice as she is nor do I have her finesse when it comes to using them. So you might want to keep that in mind before we have to drag the answers out of you.”

“You’re not seriously threatening me. That would ruin your superhero cred,” Cheetah said, though she sounded far less confident than she had a second ago.

“Physically no. We wouldn’t stoop to that level,” Barbara said. “However, we have a copy of the footage where you sabotaged my invention and that is getting turned in to Principal Waller. That is nonnegotiable.”

“If you’re going to do that, what are you doing here?” Cheetah demanded. “Why should I possibly help you if it doesn’t also do something for me?”

“Because in your heart you actually want to be a halfway decent person?” Kara offered. When this didn’t elicit any response Kara frowned. “Wow, you are a terrible superhero.”

“We’re here because we want to know exactly what you did to the Telepathy Tiaras. Your cooperation buys you what sort of narrative we tell Principal Waller when we hand over the tape,” Barbara said. “As things stand now, we tell her that you maliciously snuck in and sabotaged my invention with the intent to ruin my project. You also did it during a false Save the Day Alarm and perhaps we should be looking into who set that off as well.”

“Or perhaps this was a prank, like the ones Harley pulls all the time,” Kara said. “You were bored because there wasn’t an actual emergency and didn’t realize your actions would have any real consequences. But once you found out there was a lasting effect that you had a hand in creating, you immediately helped put things to rights.”

“All I did was yank out like three wires and twisted one of your circuit boards sideways,” Cheetah said. “I didn’t know this was going to happen. Like Supergirl said, it was a harmless prank. It’s your own fault for creating such a powerful and dangerous device!”

“We’ll keep that in mind when we talk to Principal Waller,” Barbara said.

There wasn’t time to visit Principal Waller before curfew, so the pair went back to their dorm suite. Once in Barbara’s room she reviewed the footage to see if she could determine exactly how Cheetah tampered with the tiaras. After all, Cheetah wasn’t exactly known for being truthful even when she was coming clean. Magnifying the image enough to see inside the tiara made it rather grainy—Superhero High had a solid budget, however they couldn’t afford to spend it all on surveillance—but it was enough for Barbara to make some informed guesses as to what Cheetah had done. She made the corresponding corrections to the tiara then closed it.

“Shall we see if it works this time?” Barbara asked.

“It can’t hurt,” Kara said. “But, if this doesn’t work we need to reach out to someone who knows more about this sort of thing. I miss being me.”

“Me too,” Barbara agreed.

There wasn’t anything else to say so they put the tiaras on and properly secured them. Barbara shut her eyes, tapped the side of the circlet, and hoped that when she opened them again she’d have a different vantage point. She thought the same message she had sent the last two times she had been in this situation and waited. 

This time the pop and smoke made her relax. Less ideal was the fact her room didn’t have the high functioning ventilation system of the classroom. Barbara crouched down to the floor, coughing as she went to get out of the thick smoke. To her delight she saw Kara crouching down as well, which meant she had to be back in her own body. She felt a smile spread across her face, but before allowing her emotions to get out of hand she had to confirm it. Reaching down into her utility belt, which was a familiar weight on her waist, Barbara pulled out a compact mirror and checked her reflection. Green eyes, red hair, and a dusting of freckles spilling out from under her black mask. Hypothesis confirmed.

“We’re us again!” Barbara laughed, but quickly started coughing. She ought to have a respirator on her belt, but she was fairly certain Kara had lost it earlier this week.

“Yay,” Kara said through her shirt collar. 

“There’s a small window by the bed. Open it and let’s blow this smoke out.”

“Oh it!”

With a bit of fumbling Kara found the window, opened it, and then inhaled deeply. The next moment it felt like Barbara was in a tornado as everything went flying in her room. She landed in a corner. Everything was in disarray, with monitors yanked off tables and papers still floating in the air, but at least the smoke was gone. Kara grinned sheepishly.

“Sorry. It’s been a while since I last had to get smoke out of a tiny room,” Kara apologized.

“Whatever. Nothing’s on fire and we’re back in our respective bodies,” Barbara said. She cast a critical eye around her room. It was pretty trashed, but she was fairly certain most of her things were still salvageable. “I’m cool as long as you help me clean this place up tomorrow.”

“Deal.”

Feeling a little more sentimental than usual, Barbara walked over to her best friend and pulled her into a tight hug. “I’m so happy we’re ourselves again.”

Kara went back to her own space after that. In the morning they found Principal Waller first thing. Barbara was ready to completely sell Cheetah up the river, but Kara pointed out that they had promised to recast her in a better light in exchange for her help and that heroes didn’t break their promises. In the end Cheetah got a month’s detention instead of the expulsion she richly deserved. 

Barbara also wrote another paper for Crazy Quilt about the secondary property of her Telepathy Tiara functioning as a mind swapping device and the usefulness of such an invention. It bumped her project up a letter grade, which still wasn’t great, but she could live with a B a heck of a lot better than a C. While Barbara was writing Kara went through the school and quickly fixed most of the damage Barbara had accidentally caused while stuck with her Kryptonian strength. It wasn’t perfect, but a bit of heat vision spot welding meant the school was structurally sound.

Since everything was finally put to rights in their lives they decided to celebrate. It was a tiny private celebration, just the pair of them on the cafeteria roof with some smoothies and super food cake. It was a nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

“You know,” Kara began after they had been eating in silence for a bit. “Most people would say that they know their best friend inside and out, but I’m one of the few who really means it.”

“Yeah? Your point being?” Barbara asked.

“I’ve got a much better perspective of you now, Babs. A lot more respect too. It’s hard to be a non-powered superhero, but you do it with pizzazz. If I permanently lost my powers I don’t think I could keep doing it.”

“No? Because I think you would,” Barbara said. She set down the last of her cake and tapped her friend on her S. “You’ve got the heart of a hero, Kara, and I know you’d keep saving people even if you lost your powers. Your focus might shift a little, so that you’d be inspiring kids in a classroom or righting wrongs in a courtroom instead of flying head first into burning buildings, but you’d still be saving people.”

“Yeah?” Kara grinned.

“Scratch that last thought. You’d totally still be diving head first into burning buildings because you’d be a great firefighter,” Barbara laughed. Kara lightly elbowed her, but started laughing as well. Then the Save the Day Alarm went off. They stopped laughing, dusted off the cake crumbs, and stood. “Guess we’d better go save the day again.”

That’s exactly what they did.


End file.
